Inside the Weeds Designs

A throwback to a 1960s smoking den, Paul Latham’s lounge is a seductive spot to rendezvous and spill secrets. The sinuous, biomorphic silhouette of the Latham-designed fainting couch beckons for a cozy tête-à-tête. The sexy skins of the leather slipper chair and zebra rug add sensuality to the space. The triptych is based on a late-19th-century painting that was photo-enlarged on metallic paper and mounted on wood-framed Gatorboard.

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Photographer: Antoine Bootz

This room has a corner on style. Tom Dixon’s Wing Back mohair-covered wing-back chair is an avante-garde take on a classic. A polished-aluminum and glass shelving system designed by ALU for store displays layers in a touch of industrial chic. It’s sturdy enough to house the television, lots of vintage books, a collection of green-glass lab bottles and the essential pipes.

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Photographer: Adam Chinitz

While antiquing, Paul Latham found the three-foot-high Chinese gnarled root that forms the base of this organic console. Now topped with Alcamo Marbleworks granite to make an oddly sophisticated piece.

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Photographer: Adam Chinitz

A Chemist’s Vanity

This collection of new and vintage apothecary jars was gathered from a variety of sources found in Brooklyn and on eBay. The jars are cleverly filled with vodka and Artemisia absinthium (wormwood), the herb used for Nancy’s own liqueur. Paired with a terrarium, the collection glitters under the task lighting.

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Photographer: Adam Chinitz

The Weeds bathroom is a tribute to all things grass. Both room and shower stall are covered in surprisingly realistic Grasstex Big Cypress Astro-Tuf from Aronsons Floors. Just Scandinavian’s lacquered birch stool is covered in Poison fabric. Wrapped around the room are photos of Paul Latham’s 19th-century English pipe collection that were framed by Skyframe, Inc.

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Photographer: Adam Chinitz

Weeds is based on the clash of the sacred and the profane, and to James Biber, nothing exemplifies this conflict more than the scene in season three when a cross is stolen from a church to serve as a grow-house light. Inspired by that classic episode, Biber designed a 5,000-crystal cross chandelier by Swarovski that takes center stage over this high-style picnic table. The reconfigurable picnic table/bench system by Pentagram Architects also mimics the shape of the cross and the wavy walls were built to cradle the religious icon.

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Photographer: Adam Chinitz

To create this superb graphic image on drapery sheers, James Biber began with a picture of actress Mary-Louise Parker's face. Mega Media Concepts enlarged the photo, then transferred it onto fabric using a dye-sublimination process that delivers a crisp photographic look on fabric.

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Photographer: Adam Chinitz

With its table runner made from real moss, this posh picnic table gets seriously back to nature. Michael Aram’s Forest Leafflatware features natural twig handles cast in silver plate. Butterflies and insects fly across Ted Mueling’s porcelain platters, as rolled joints (faux, of course!) sit ready and waiting for an after-dinner smoke.

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Photographer: Antoine Bootz

An up-close look at the cross chandelier, formed from four Glitterbox lanterns by Georg Baldele for Swarovski, reveals a surface constructed of thousands of elegantly cut crystals. At night, their brilliant sparkle is enhanced by a series encased LED lights.

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Photographer: Adam Chinitz

Set within the custom wall design, the table-height Napoleon fireplace doubles as a reflective mirror and bounces light. Chunks of Swarovski crystal sit inside, serving as decorative kindling for the flames. The wall is painted a strip of orange and red in Aura paint and covered with a wood wallpaper, a designed by Lori Weitzner’s and made from South American tree bark. The undulating walls mimic flames and also cradle the arms of the cross chandelier.

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Photographer: Antoine Bootz

To meet the challenge of designing a joined terrace shared by the Weeds and United States of Tara casts, the principals of Surfacedesign focused on a common theme of both shows—the need for privacy. A series of folding screens grant characters all the solitude they want, whether discussing Weeds “family business” or taking a break from one of Tara’s alters.

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Photographer: Antoine Bootz

Scenery Screens

Interlocking MDF plywood folding screens, fabricated by Southside Design & Building, paint an idyllic, albeit fictional, picture of the perfect suburban life. Peekaboo cutouts, made by a router saw, give the screens a multidimensional feel. They also reveal that, like the theme of Weeds, not all is as it seems, even out on the terrace.

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